Riverside brewery planned

Plans for a brewery near Grand Junction’s riverfront that have fizzled in the past decade have frothed up again.

Owners of Kannah Creek Brewing Company recently gained approval for a conditional-use permit from Grand Junction’s planning commission to build a two-story brew pub in the 900 block of Struthers Avenue, to the east of the Western Colorado Botanical Gardens.

Edgewater Brewery will be a 12,190-square-foot manufacturing plant and restaurant on a 1.4-acre site, according to one of the owners, Jim Jeffryes. The new brewery will produce beers currently created at Kannah Creek, 1960 N. 12th St., but the new bottling facility will be five times bigger than the company’s current manufacturing space. Menu items at the new adjoining restaurant will include burgers and salads and differ from fare offered at the Kannah Creek location. Plans for Edgewater Brewery also include creating a large outdoor patio.

“We would really love to see this area turn into something beautiful,” owner Bernadette Jeffryes said about businesses along the riverfront.

The parcel has been owned by the company since 1998, and plans to build the brewery have been in the works for years, Jim Jeffryes said.

An application to build the brewery was approved in 2001. Owners then realized they wouldn’t be able to build a brewery at that time and were granted a one-year extension. However, plans were stalled again as the city replaced sewer and water lines in the area, followed by the construction of the Riverside Parkway. Since 2008, securing funding for a loan from a bank has been nearly impossible, but that recently has changed, Jim Jeffryes said.

“It’s been a pretty big dream for us for the last 10 years,” he said of the project.

Planning commissioners unanimously recommended approval for the permit during a meeting Tuesday.

Construction is expected to cost about $4 million, and the project may be completed by March, Jim Jeffryes said. FCI Constructors will be the builder.

The new brewery will employ about 40 people, and about 25 to 30 employees will be full-time, Jim Jeffryes said.

Owners hope the new facility will spark other investors to move businesses to the riverfront area.

“If we start building here, it will just kind of be this little storm,” Jim Jeffryes said.